This tutorial explains how to insert pictures into Wikipedia articles using wikitext. This is one of the most frequently asked questions. It describes options for specifying placement, alt text, captions, sizes and links, and contains advice about panoramas and avoiding image stackups. There is also a technical document describing the syntax. The same syntax is used regardless of whether a file is from Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons.

Adding the first picture

If an article already has an infobox at the top right, then the usual place for the article's first picture is within the infobox. For guidance on the syntax for doing this, see Help:Infobox picture. In very brief summary, one hurdle that trips up many people when attempting to add an image to an infobox template is that most internally provide the wiki code that "wraps" the image. Accordingly, you do not usually add the brackets, number of pixels, and other code details you will learn about below, when placing an image in infoboxes – just the file name next to a field labeled | image =. Adding such extraneous code will cause many infoboxes to break. Also, be aware that some infoboxes require that the file's name be placed without the file/image namespace prefix. Thus, and for example, if File:Name.jpg does not work, try just Name.jpg.

Thumbnails

Instructions on this page may not work with VisualEditor. If you have opted in, you can use either VisualEditor or classic editing through wiki markup (wikitext) to edit most pages. The directions on this page, especially about what codes to type to produce formatting effects, are predominantly geared toward wikitext editing. For instructions on editing with VisualEditor, see Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide.

A typical picture can be inserted with a line [[File:...|thumb|...]] as shown below. (Image: can be substituted for File: with no change in effect; the choice between the two is purely a matter of editorial preference.) Using thumb generates a thumbnail, a picture that is typically sized differently from the original image. Several options can affect a thumbnail's placement and size.

On the left

By default a thumbnail is floated to the right of the page, with the text flowing around it. However, our first example specifies left. Just below the example you can see what the resulting picture looks like:

The above text gives the image file name "Wikipedesketch1.png", the image type "thumb" and alignment "left", the alt text "A cartoon centipede reads books and types on a laptop.", and the caption "The Wikipede edits Myriapoda." A Wikipedia reader can click on the thumbnail, or on the small double-rectangle icon below it, to see the corresponding file page which will let the user see the image in its original size.

Although the above text may appear in multiple lines for formatting purposes, the actual image text is on one line, as it uses spaces without any line breaks. The [[ and the first | must be on the same line; other spaces and line breaks are ignored if they are next to | characters or just inside the brackets. Some parts of the image syntax, such as the alt=, do not allow spaces or line breaks, and the easiest way to get it right is to omit unnecessary spaces and line breaks.

Alt text is intended for visually impaired readers. Often the caption or article will describe the image adequately, and where this is the case you can write alt=caption or alt=see adjacent text. If additional alt text is added, it should be a succinct description that complies with the content policies; see WP:ALT for more information. Unlike alt text, a caption can contain Wiki markup like ''[[Myriapoda]]''. The caption text is placed underneath the picture.

Here is the same example again, this time in the context of some colored lorem ipsum dummy text with asterisks (*) showing where the image syntax appears in the text:

Avoid referring to images as being "on the left". Image placement is different for viewers of the mobile version of Wikipedia, and is meaningless to people having pages read to them by assistive software. Instead, use captions to identify images.

Avoid referring to images as "being on the right". Image placement is different for viewers of the mobile version of Wikipedia, and is meaningless to people having pages read to them by assistive software. Instead, use captions to identify images.

Without flowing text

Although most thumbnails are combined with flowing text and are placed to the right or left, you can also place a thumbnail without text flowing around it. One way is to center it, using center:

Thumbnail sizes

Normally a thumbnail has a width of 220 pixels (px). This width is used by typical readers who have not logged in or who have not changed their preferences. You can set a different default width for yourself in My preferences under "Appearance:Files". The options are 120px, 150px, 180px, 200px, 220px, 250px, 300px, and 400px. Any image narrower than the preferred width is displayed at the narrower width.

Images beside the text should generally use a caption and the thumb (thumbnail) option; the default results in a display 220 pixels wide (170 pixels if the upright option is used), except for those logged-in users who have set a different default in their user preferences. In general, do not define the size of an image unless there is a good reason to do so: some users have small screens or need to configure their systems to display large text; "forced" large thumbnails can leave little width for text, making reading difficult. In addition, forcing a "larger" image size at say 260px will actually make it smaller for those with a larger size set as preference.

Sometimes a picture may benefit from a size other than the default; see the image use policy for guidance.

Normally the size should be specified as a value relative to the user's preferred base size, using the upright parameter rather than pixel values.

Where size forcing is appropriate, larger images should generally be no more than 500 pixels tall and 400 pixels wide, so that they can comfortably be displayed on the smallest displays in common use.

Lead images should usually be no wider than 300px. That is equivalent to using upright=1.35 if the default thumbnail width is 220px (220 multiplied by 1.35 then rounded to the nearest multiple of 10 equals 300), but larger defaults in user preferences will result in proportionally larger images (340px if the default is 250px, 410px if the default is 300px, or 540px if the default is 400px).

The default behavior can make a tall, thin picture come out too large. For example:

[[File:Amun.svg|thumb|alt=Full-length profile of man in ancient Egyptian clothing. He has red-brown skin and wears a helmet with tall yellow plumes.|The Egyptian god Amun, portrayed before the Amarna period]]

Upright images

The upright option can help fix this by informing the Wikipedia layout system that the image should have a narrower width than usual:

[[File:Amun.svg|thumb|upright|alt=Full-length profile of man in ancient Egyptian clothing. He has red-brown skin and wears a helmet with tall yellow plumes.|The Egyptian god Amun, portrayed before the Amarna period]]

The upright option normally creates an image that is about 75% of the width of the default. The exact width is computed by starting with the default thumbnail width, multiplying it by 0.75, and rounding to the nearest multiple of 10. Normally the default width is 220px so an upright image is 170px wide; changing one's default width within the range from 120px to 400px results in upright image widths ranging from 90px to 300px.

Shrinking upright images further

If the upright factor 0.75 is too large or too small, it can be specified explicitly. A factor of 1.0 uses the default thumbnail width, which is the same as not specifying upright at all; a factor less than or greater than 1.0 creates an image smaller or larger than the default. For example:

[[File:Amun.svg|thumb|upright=0.56|alt=Full-length profile of man in ancient Egyptian clothing. He has red-brown skin and wears a helmet with tall yellow plumes.|The Egyptian god Amun, portrayed before the Amarna period]]

Short, wide images

Short, wide images sometimes benefit from upright factors greater than 1.0. Factors greater than about 2.5 can generate large images that cause problems with some browsers; for one way to handle wider images, see Panoramas below. Although many image types, such as JPEG and PNG, do not handle enlargement well, SVG images have no problem with it. For example:

[[File:Köppen-vereinfacht.svg|thumb|center|upright=2.0|alt=Map of the world. A tan band stretches from northern Africa through central China; most of Australia and parts of south Africa and the western Americas are also tan. Dark greens dominate the northern hemisphere. Lighter greens cover much land near the equator. Polar areas are white, the north fringed with light blue.|Macroclimates of the earth. Tans represent desert, dark greens humid continental, and light green tropical rainforest. Light blue and white represent tundra and ice cap.]]

Width in pixels

You can also display an image of a specified width. Typically, if you specify a width in pixels, it should be at least 300px. Widths greater than about 550px may cause problems with some browsers, as stated above.

[[File:Köppen-vereinfacht.svg|thumb|center|400px|alt=Map of the world. A tan band stretches from northern Africa through central China; most of Australia and parts of south Africa and the western Americas are also tan. Dark greens dominate the northern hemisphere. Lighter greens cover much land near the equator. Polar areas are white, the north fringed with light blue.|Macroclimates of the earth. Tans represent desert, dark greens humid continental, and light green tropical rainforest. Light blue and white represent tundra and ice cap.]]

Height in pixels

To specify the exact height of a picture, letting the width scale to match, prefix the height with x. The following example resizes the image to a height of 60px:

[[File:Flag of Scotland.svg|thumb|center|x60px|alt=White diagonal cross over blue background|Flag of Scotland]]

Flag of Scotland

Width or height in pixels, whichever makes the image smaller

If you specify both width and height of a picture, it is sized to whichever value would make it smaller. This will cause a picture to fit in a certain area, regardless of the image's actual size. Since the proportions of File:Flag of Scotland.svg are 5×3, specifying a width of 120px generates a 120×72px image, and specifying a height of 60px generates a 100×60px image, so a size field of 120x60px generates the smaller of the two, namely, the 100×60px image:

[[File:Flag of Scotland.svg|thumb|center|120x60px|alt=White diagonal cross over blue background|Flag of Scotland]]

Flag of Scotland

Pixel counts vs. upright factors

Although pixel counts are easier to understand than upright factors, they adjust less well to user preferences. For example, suppose a picture contains some detail and by default is a bit too small, and you want to grow it by about 10%. Although upright=1.1 and 240px do the job equally well for the common case where the default width is 220 pixels, many of the users who set the default width to 300 pixels to work better with their high-resolution screens will be annoyed with 200px because it will make the picture a third smaller than their preferred size. In contrast, upright=1.1 will display the picture to them with a width of 330 pixels, and this is more likely to work well on their displays.

Pixel counts are typically better than upright factors for displaying combinations of pictures, some of which have known and limited sizes, and for displaying tiny icons that are intended to be combined with text.

Native size

Replacing thumb with frame causes the image to be displayed in its native size, that is, the size that it was originally uploaded with. This use is obsolete and should not be used because it is disruptive for many displays, especially mobile devices. Instead, if an article would be better with pictures resized in some way other than the default, use the "upright" parameter. Users should set their own preferences if they want pictures resized and article authors should not do this. If anyone has a justification for using the frame feature then please share on the talk page. For historical reference, here is an example of it being used:

Panoramas

Very large pictures should not be put directly into articles, as they cause problems in some browser environments. Images wider than 550px or so are often better treated as a panorama, which can be created with the {{Wide image}} template. For example:

{{wide image|Helsinki z00.jpg|1800px|alt=Panorama of city with mixture of five- to ten-story buildings|[[Helsinki]] has many buildings.}}

Avoiding stack-ups

One of the problems many users of floating pictures hit is that multiple pictures sometimes stack up vertically, particularly with large screens and wide images. For example, in many browsers the two pictures at the right of this text stack up awkwardly.

Alternating left and right

Perhaps the easiest way to handle multiple floating pictures is to alternate them left then right (or right then left); this way they do not come into contact with one another, and so cannot stack up in an unattractive way. This has a disadvantage, though: people with very low screen resolutions (such as those using netbooks) may find the result too awkward, albeit still readable.

{{Gallery
|title=Cultural depictions of George Washington
|width=160
|height=170
|lines=4
|align=center
|File:Federal Hall NYC 27.JPG|alt1=Back of statue facing a city building whose facade is Greek columns covered by a huge U.S. flag|The statue of Washington outside [[Federal Hall]] in [[New York City]], looking on [[Wall Street]].
|File:Mount Rushmore2.jpg|alt2=Profile of stone face jutting out from a mountainside. Three workers clamber over it, each about the height of the face's upper lip.|Construction on the George Washington portrait at [[Mount Rushmore]], c. 1932.
|File:2014 ATB Quarter Obv.png|alt3=Silver coin with profile of Washington bust. He faces left regally and wears a colonial-style queue in his hair. "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" is at top, "QUARTER DOLLAR" at bottom, "LIBERTY" at left, and "IN GOD WE TRUST" above "P" at right. Just below the bust is "JF uc" in tiny letters.|Washington is commemorated on the [[Quarter (United States coin)|quarter]].
|File:George Washington Presidential $1 Coin obverse.png|alt4=Gold coin with bust of Washington facing slightly left of but looking sternly straight at the viewer. "GEORGE WASHINGTON" is above, "1st PRESIDENT 1789–1797" below, and "JFM" in tiny letters at the bust's base.|Washington is also commemorated on some [[dollar coin (United States)|dollar coins]].
}}

Forcing a break

As a final resort, you can force the browser to insert a break, making all text and pictures appear below the bottom of the first picture. This can produce rather unattractive gaps, particularly in the accompanying text. Remember that text will flow and wrap differently for other users, based on their chosen browser, screen resolution, default font size, accessibility options, number of toolbars and sidebars (such as instant messaging panes) and more. Do not force page design just so that it looks pretty on your display. Hack only where absolutely necessary. Wherever possible, just use the simplest logical page flow.

Plain pictures

Most pictures in articles are thumbnails, but sometimes more specialized needs require finer grained control. A plain picture with no formatting can be inserted with:

[[File:Wikipedesketch1.png|A cartoon centipede reads books and types on a laptop.]]

In this plain picture the text A cartoon centipede reads books and types on a laptop. is not visible as a caption. Instead, it appears as the title text of the image, commonly displayed as a tooltip during a mouseover. In a thumbnail the alt text defaults to empty, but a plain picture's alt text defaults to its title text if given and to the picture's file name if not; this default can be overridden with an explicit alt=Alt text option. Title text, like alt text, will ignore any Wiki markup.

A plain picture can be placed anywhere in the article, and acts as a big character in the text, so that nearby text does not float or wrap around it. For example:

Note: To achieve a plain image with a caption, one can use {{Plain image with caption}}. The caption is automatically added as the image's title and alt text, and any wiki markup used on it will be correctly displayed on the caption, but will be automatically stripped down from the alt and title text. See an example here.

Plain picture sizes

A plain picture defaults to the image's native size. This can be overridden with an explicit size. For example:

[[File:Wikipedesketch1.png|50px|A cartoon centipede reads books and types on a laptop.]]

The frameless option causes a plain picture to default to the same size as a thumbnail. As with thumbnails, the default can be adjusted with the upright=factor option. If you use the common default of 220 pixels for thumbnail widths, the following example image's width will be 220 × 0.2 pixels, which rounds to 40 pixels:

[[File:Amun.svg|frameless|upright=0.2|alt=Full-length profile of man in ancient Egyptian clothing. He has red-brown skin and wears a helmet with tall yellow plumes.|The Egyptian god Amun, portrayed before the Amarna period]]

Horizontal placement

Like thumbnails, plain pictures can be floated left or right with text flowing around them; or centered or put left without text flow. The only difference is that the right parameter is required to float a plain picture to the right, whereas floating right is the default for thumbnails. For example:

[[File:Wikipedesketch1.png|right|A cartoon centipede reads books and types on a laptop.]]

Vertical alignment

When a plain picture appears in text, it is aligned so that its vertical middle is roughly where the center of a lower-case "x" would be; if the image is larger than the line is tall, it sticks out both above and below. The vertical alignment syntax provides several options to adjust this. For example, the baseline option:

generates "XX" instead of the default "XX". Available options for vertical alignment, next to the output that they generate, are baseline, middle (the default), sub, super, text-top, text-bottom, top, and bottom.

Links

Normally a picture links to its image page, which describes the image, who created it, and links to the original image at full resolution. You can create a plain picture that links to some other location by using the link option.

To link to some other page, specify its name in the link option along with an appropriate caption that hints to readers what will happen if they click on the link. This caption serves both as title text for the tooltip, and as alt text for visually disabled readers. For example, [[File:Flag of France.svg|20px|link=France|France]] generates a flag that links to the article France.

To link to an external site, specify its URL in the link option along with an appropriate caption. For example, [[File:Flag of Belgium.svg|20px|link=http://www.belgium.be/en/|Belgium government portal]] generates a flag that links to the English-language portal of the Belgian government.

A purely decorative image, which conveys no information and does nothing when it is clicked on, can be specified with an empty alt attribute. For example [[File:Flag of the United States.svg|20px|link=|alt=]] generates a flag that is purely decorative.

Image maps

You can link different parts of an image to different locations using an image map. For example, in the image at right, clicking a circle roughly corresponding to the left portrait takes the reader to William Jennings Bryan, clicking the right portrait goes to Arthur Sewall, and clicking anywhere else goes to http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/democrats.html. This image is generated by the following markup:

This imagemap markup specifies that the title text (tooltips) for the three regions are "William J. Bryan", "Arthur Sewall", and "1896 Democrats", respectively. The alt text for an imagemap region is always the same as its title text; the alt text for the overall image is given in the first line of the imagemap's markup. The underlying image's native dimensions are 3916×1980, and the coordinates are given in these dimensions rather than in the 300px resizing. As described in the image map documentation, regions can be specified as circles, rectangles, and arbitrary polygons, and the blue "i" icon can be moved or suppressed. Also, the image can be specified as a thumb or frame, which means it has alt text and a caption in the usual way, with a double-rectangle icon instead of the blue "i" icon .

Overlaying annotations on an image

Some diagrams are uploaded without text, so that they can be used in multiple languages; or one may desire to add clickable links to an image. In such cases, text annotations can be added to an image with the templates Template:Annotated image or Template:Annotated image 4.

These templates allow wikitext (e.g., regular text, wikilinks, and reference templates) to be included on the image itself. They may also be used to crop an image so as to focus on a particular portion of it, or alternatively, expand the white area around an image for better placement of wikitext.

Linking without displaying

Let us say you want to link to the picture without displaying it. You can do it by adding a colon before the "File:" prefix. You can take them to the image page, where it tells them who uploaded it, when, what the copyright status is, etc.:

When the link is clicked the image is displayed with other text information at a reasonable size. The user can click through the resulting medium-sized image to get to the full size highest resolution image.

This can be awkward if the image is quite large, for the full size image will be displayed when the user clicks the link.

Finally, you can link to one image from a thumbnail's small double-rectangle icon , but display another image using "|thumb=Displayed image name". This is intended for the rare cases when the Wikipedia software that reduces images to thumbnails does a poor job, and you want to provide your own thumbnail. In the following example, the double-rectangle links to File:Anime stub 2.svg but the image displayed is File:Anime stub.png: